She smiled up at him. “You are looking very grand to-day. But you have grass stains on your white trousers. Perhaps Katie can take them out.”
Quite suddenly K. felt that she thought him too old for such frivolity of dress. It put him on his mettle.
“How old do you think I am, Miss Sidney?”
She considered, giving him, after her kindly way, the benefit of the doubt.
“Not over forty, I'm sure.”
“I'm almost thirty. It is middle age, of course, but it is not senility.”
She was genuinely surprised, almost disturbed.
“Perhaps we'd better not tell mother,” she said. “You don't mind being thought older?”
“Not at all.”
Clearly the subject of his years did not interest her vitally, for she harked back to the grass stains.